2. Creative Quilting with Japanese Vintage Fabrics: Patricia Belyea of Okan Arts

Patricia takes us on a journey from her quilting and Japanese textile "origin" stories, the organic ways in which her textile and teaching business evolved, and finally, to the present day where she and her daughter Victoria organize textile tours in Japan.

GUEST BIO
A creative quilt maker, speaker and teacher, Patricia co-owns Okan Arts with her daughter Victoria. The small family business imports vintage Japanese textiles for adventuresome quilters. Patricia is the author of East-Meets-West Quilts, a book about making improv quilts with Japanese fabrics. These days, Patricia and Victoria are busy leading textile tours to Japan!

To learn more about Patricia Belyea or Okan Arts, visit www.okanarts.com or follow them on social media @okanarts.

Transcript

Welcome to Creative Japan, the podcast where we explore the vibrant world of artists and makers united by a Japanese connection. Join us as artists from around the globe discuss their work and share their creative journeys. I am your host, Emi Takagi Stapler, a Japanese American quilter and designer. I discovered my own artistic voice, one I describe as modern meets heritage, when I found myself pulling from my Japanese culture and upbringing in my designs. 

I believe that by listening to other stories, we can grow as creatives and find new sources of inspiration. Get ready to be immersed in a rich tapestry of stories that can ignite your artistic voice here at Creative Japan. 

Hello. Today we have Patricia Belyea with us from Okan Arts. She's a creative quilt maker, speaker, teacher, and co-owner of the business, along with her daughter, Victoria. The small family business imports vintage Japanese textiles for adventuresome quilters. Patricia is also the author of East Meets West, a book about making improv quilts with Japanese fabrics.

I'm thrilled to have you here, Patricia, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you and your work a little bit better. Well, thank you, Emi. I'm thrilled to meet you. 

Thank you. Well, first of all, we've had a chance to chat a little bit, but can you tell our listeners where your business is located and where you live?

Oh, I am a Washingtonian. I'm in Washington State in a very remote area. East of the mountains up by the Canadian border and this area is called the Okanagan Highlands. My business headquarters is there in a log house and then another arm of our business, my daughter and partner is in Long Beach. So we have these Japanese textiles that we import from Japan, they all come into Long Beach Port and we have a space there where we photograph and put up on the website, these products that we purchase. 

Okay. Now I have to ask, how did these vintage Japanese fabrics first enter your creative life? How did you come across them? 

Well, you know, there's never been a plan. I was thinking about that this morning. There's never even been a vision. Oh, I'm going to do this. So everything has been organic. If you'll allow me, I'll go back in time.

When I was 50 I traveled to Japan. It was a lifelong dream, half a century, you know, maybe I'll never get there. And then I was 53 when I made my first quilt, so things are beginning to converge. But during my 50s, my husband and I hosted eight Japanese homestay students, three for full years and others for shorter English school sessions.

And so, we now had not only this dream of mine of kind of always wanting to go to Japan, we had to go back because we had to visit our kids. We were their American family. And so, as we started going back and forth, I now was a quilter and us quilters are always treasure hunting, looking for the great fabric.

And one day I found this roll of narrow fabric, beautifully dyed. I don't even know if I knew it was dyed, but it was beautifully dyed.  And when I returned from that trip, I asked so many people,  Oh, what did I see? What was that fabric? And not one person that I met could say, oh, that is the cotton that's made for the summer kimono in Japan, yukata.

I couldn't get that information, but I will tell you, I started buying bolts of this, well they look like this, bolts of this narrow fabric, and, with no good reason except for I was a corporate person, I had disposable income, and I bought one bolt or two bolts or one bolt. So I started acquiring this and it got ahead of me.

I ended up with so much of this fabric that I had to share it. And I, somehow then started selling Japanese textiles and then this quilting and the textiles took over my life, that I had to quit my corporate job because my mind was on something else. And I, yeah. I've gotten much more involved with it.

I've learned more, I branched out to learning about more textiles in Japan, traveling to Japan to discover more and more and talking to more people, reading books. I'm just a little obsessed.  

No, I love that. You, you went way back to show that it wasn't the quilting that came first then the fabrics that you started using, that they, they kind of had their separate points.

They came together and, and this, this allowing of, something to happen is a blessing.

You know, when I was buying this fabric, my husband, I thank him very much for this, never said to me. Because it was like every day a little something was arriving. He never said, what's the plan? What is this? We were getting, we, I now had a few bins of fabric filled. He never asked me and I, I couldn't have answered the question if he had wanted me to say, we are going to do this. I didn't have that answer yet. It, just had to evolve. Yeah. 

And it's almost like you fell in love with it. And I feel like, at least hearing your story, because you fell in love with the fabric first and that was like the focus and the most important thing. It wasn't like you were forcing a business out of it.

You know what I mean? It's like that. And I'm sure that that passion is what fuels what fuels your motivation in your business. No? 

I never bought it for that reason. I bought it because it was so intriguing and I couldn't stop myself. I have a funny story. I had, I don't know how long it had been into this, but I had these two bins that were stacked in my formal dining room with these rolls of fabric that I had never opened.

I'd never like, cut a yard out of anything. And I thought, how much of that fabric do I have? So I went and counted it. I had 42 bolts. And,I think this sounds like a fairy tale, but it was like this.  There was a little angel on this shoulder. There was a little devil on this shoulder. And the little red one over here said to me,  What would it be like to have a hundred bolts? 

And I thought, yeah, what would it be like to have a hundred bolts? I'd have so much more to choose from. And that just cracked it open to, I could buy anything I wanted. I was now going to have more instead of saying, you're out of control, girl, stop now. So there you go.  

Okay. So when was the point that you, you realized, okay, not only do I want to continue importing for more than I can use, right? So turning it into a business. So when did that happen along the path? And then when did your daughter get involved in the business? 

So I was a quilter, and it took me a while to find everything, but I soon learned, in Tokyo, was the largest quilt festival in the world. So, I would now time a trip to Japan to be late January, so I could go to the quilt festival.

And this probably my third time to the Quilt Festival, now having acquired quite a bit of this fabric, I flew back and I thought about it, and I wanted to write off that trip as a business expense. So the day I returned, you get back at about 8 in the morning to Seattle, so I wasn't going to work that day and through my jet lag fog, I registered a business with the state of California and the federal government and I hadn't thrown away any of my receipts. That was the beginning of my business. I started at a debit state. So now I had a business and I called it Okan Arts because I live in the Okanagan Highlands and I had bought the Okan Arts domain, the website name a few years earlier thinking I was going to do something, but I never did.

And, so now it's the beginning of a year and you, it's not good to have a business that doesn't have any business activity. So I, in the following couple of years would take my goods, to fabric stores where we pre-agreed to this and for a day or two I'd be in the front of the fabric store. They'd announce I'd be there and people could shop with me, but I didn't transact any money.

They had to do other stuff in the store, and then it all transacted at their cash register. So I wasn't even handling money. I didn't even know how to do it. It was before Square Space where you could swipe things was a big deal to handle money. So then I was selling some fabric to the public and I was also, I also had a piece of paper that I would get people to join my mailing list. 

So from the very beginning, I cultivated a mailing list, and I would email people whenever I was going to be somewhere. Anyway, it was, that was a very humble beginning. Like, like, not having a store, but being out there. Yeah.  

So when did Victoria join you in the business? Well, Victoria was a college student at, early on where she worked part time for me. And, she would help me, when I do a guild talk, she would come set up and then she'd sell fabric after my talk. And then we'd do events and she would help me set them up and she'd be my partner. She was really good with his fabric.

And. So, I was doing an event. I was teaching a workshop, actually, in the town of La Conner, which is close to Seattle. Her job was to get up the final morning of the workshop, drive to La Conner, and pack me out. And as we're driving back from this event, Emi, I, you have kids, you've told me that. My adult daughter, I could tell, was, this is going to sound weird, but she was not doing well.

She had all these little jobs she would do like this for this person and then they'd say don't come this week or don't come that week. She had this patched together world of how to make an income. And I got home and I said in front of my husband, I said, Victoria, I haven't discussed this with your father yet, but how would you like to become a partner in Okan Arts? 

I just thought we could give, I could give her a place for who knows how long. And so within a month partnership papers had been written up and she became my partner.  And, I've never looked back. She has been a great joy to work with and we might talk about it later. But she is the person who said to me, Mom, let's take people on tours to Japan.

Something I was never willing to do on my own. So, that wouldn't have happened without her. So it's just one of the things we can do for our children. And she's graciously and kindly, worked with me now for the last six years.  

So, just having been on your website and chatting with you, I guess I just assumed, I mean, I guess she was part of the picture, just not as an official partner at first, because for three years, she worked part time. Yeah, so, because you had bought the domain Okan Arts previously, so was that inspired by your daughter and your homestays and being a mother figure or no? 

Oh, you ask such good questions, but, so when I was 50, not only did I go to Japan, I bought, I went to go buy a cabin in the woods, but in looking for a cabin in the woods, my husband and I bought something much further from Seattle where we were home based, and it was in the Okanagan Highlands, and it was much bigger than a cabin.

It was a custom log home that was available for sale and it was a great price and we grabbed it and then as soon as we bought this house, and we already had a house, my husband said , well, now I need to buy a pickup truck. I said, what? You never talked about a pickup truck? Well, you know what that does.

Now you've got this big bill every month. So me thinking, oh, I know what I'll do every time we go over there, this is so ridiculous. I'll go into the woods and I'll pick up all this moss and cool wood, and I'll take it back to Seattle and I'll sell it to florists to pay for the gas. Mm-Hmm. Because the gas was like a hundred dollars a weekend 20 years ago. 

Well, um, I bought the domain OkanArts.com, but I never, I never activated that. So I had this, I bought it for five years. I'd had this domain. I went to Japan, I started this business and then I started doing all these things with that as my company name. And this sounds like a crazy, why would this happen?

But about two years into using it one day, I thought. What does Okan mean in Japanese? Maybe it means snake. Maybe it means fever. Maybe it means death. I thought, oh my God, I never like connected those dots. So I raced to a computer, looked up in the Japanese dictionary. You're Japanese. You know this, but a dialect of Osaka, it means mom. 

See, I grew up in that area. So. Yes. Yeah. Right. So I'm going. I mean, I'm, there you go, there's some, that's not a coincidence. That's like, that's like the Gods smiling on me. So mom arts we’re a mother daughter business. I live in the Okanagan Highlands, East meets West. So that was not planned, and I'm very thrilled how it worked out. So maybe, did you recognize that, that that was the word? 

So, as you probably know, in Japanese, many words can have the same sounds, but there's different kanji to go with it. So when I first started, I wasn't sure what kanji went with okan. None. But okan is very, like a very casual, almost kind of slangy dialect term, right?

It's not something you would call someone else's, Mother. Right. You would use a more. That's what I've heard. Yes. You would use a more honorary term. So yeah, when I first saw it, I didn't put two and two together knowing, well, it could be different characters. Right. So yeah, that is, that's a fun story.

And then again, when you said you had had all those home stays, I was like, well, maybe, maybe they started calling you okan. No, no they didn't. They called me Patty. Patty. Oh, Patty. Patty. Yeah.  

Alright. So. I want to touch, you mentioned East Meets West. So you have a book that you published a number of years ago called East Meets West.

Yeah, you can show the cover. There it is. So when I'm looking at your website, I'm looking at your work. You, your style has, there's, there's curves in it, not in all of it, but I see curves. I see a lot of improv, like modern improv feel, but then these more traditional vintage fabrics. So I can try to piece together a description of what I think your style is, but I'm curious how you would define your style, your quilting style and your design style.

Well, I'm not a modern quilter. I'm not a traditional quilter. I'm not what's called a contemporary art quilter. So I've coined my own movement. It's called creative quilts. So, it's a movement of one. Nobody else is with me really. But what it does is, it's all about cutting apart fabric and sewing it back together.

That's what we do as quilters, but also, for me, this fabric that I've become involved with has completely led me to places, opened my eyes, talked to me about what the possibilities can be.  This narrow width, beautifully dyed fabric has very lyrical patterns on it, typically, or else the very, rigid, uh, geometrics.

And when you deal with this fabric, You start thinking differently. You don't want to, you don't want to cut it up into little squares and triangles. So it cracks things open. And for me, I began to explore the world of curved piecing. Because the fabric, pulled me in that direction. And I worked on a technique called complex curves for over ten years.

Where the quilts are completely filled with curves. Curve upon curve and completely flat. That's the big deal in quilting. And, of my design. I don't have templates. I don't, I even draw my own curves. I could use a compass, but I tend to not do that. So, I got, very involved with curve piecing.

Then I did write a book. I spent five years on that book. I did some things on the side, but it was pretty big focus. And that was all, straight lines and improv. And then when I returned to my studio after the book project was over, I began a new series called Big Grid with Inserted Curves. I actually have one behind me here.

We can see there's a background grid. We can see those pink lines arcing through it. They're pieced. So a whole new idea about, making, quilt compositions. And as I said, it just doesn't fit in any of the boxes that are out there. So. Me, I'm so creative, I made my own box.  

No, no. I love that. And actually hearing you explain your style, it's almost like the materials you were using were a big influence because you needed, you couldn't have small piecing because of the scale of the designs on the yukata.

You talked a lot about the curved kind of lines that are typical, like the little, the, the swirls and the, you know, the, the swoops that are typical on the designs, and I almost see that in those inserted curves as well. So it's almost like you're kind of playing with the yukata, right? Like you're. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're trying to highlight it, but you're also kind of being influenced in your design by the patterns on the yukata.

Well, we can see behind you a great quilt with curves and solids and to tell you the truth, it's really hard to work with pattern fabrics. It's much easier to just do the colors and so I do find myself challenged, but I work toward trying to find a way through pattern with pattern and I can't just go get any pattern I want. 

The fabrics I'm dealing with are vintage yukata cottons 20-60 year old fabric. I'm getting what I can get I'm not like going. Oh, I want one of those one of those they don't exist and if I run out of it I can't get more. So, there's a few constraints involved, and I do find winnowing into, like, the constraint of, I only have this much fabric, or maybe I only have this fabric, helps also, get me to just move forward instead of going, oh, there's limitless possibilities in the world I can't get started. I can get started. Yeah.  

Okay. So another question I had about the vintage fabrics I know that you do the tours to Japan and you travel to Japan. Do you handpick? The fabrics that you import, or do you have somebody that you work with in Japan very closely for that?

I do handpick them, but I handpick them off of websites. I'm shown photos of what I can buy. And I buy a bolt of fabric, one bolt at a time. Each bolt travels from, there's about 31 different groups I work with, they travel across Japan to a consolidation center in Tokyo, where I have a stall, and once I've collected enough, bolts or whatever else I've been buying there then I get it consolidated and my fabric does not come to America in containers it comes in really big about 45 pound boxes and It's shipped by air when I say ship it, it's in Long Beach, usually about two and a half days later.

It's quite fast when that happens, but yes, I'm buying it bolt by bolt. And my biggest challenge is, that finding what kind of condition the fabric is when I receive it. It can be damaged, could be water damaged, sun damaged, or age damaged. And we go through every bolt. We take every bolt all the way down to the core.

There's a little core in the middle here, and we check for damage, and then we count how much yardage is left, and then we post it online. If there's not a lot of yardage available, we'll cut it into pieces for our scrap packs. So, we don't waste anything. We are trying to move the fabric forward, but sometimes it's just too damaged for us to offer it to anyone. We don't want them to think, vintage fabric, old stuff, damaged. No, we want them to get something that's like, remarkable, so beautiful, they've never handled anything like it before. 

When I think of my Obaasan, my grandmother's house, I think of the smell of mothballs, that she would have, to preserve all the kimonos, so, do you get a lot of that, those kind of scents with the vintage fabrics?

No, I don't know why I don't get that naphthalene, but I did get it from some fabric that was sold to me. Someone had a cedar chest in North America that they put the mothballs in. And I can tell you how to get that smell out. It's quite remarkable. Oh, really? Yeah, because you can't wash it out. You can't dry clean it out.

I lived in Seattle at the time. I had was wool I threw it over the railing in my backyard and I just let it get rained on and I believe the negative ions in the air with the rain, and then a little bit of sunshine, that wool that I got that smell out of it and it was bad is an afghan in my living room today. It's beautiful fabric, but I've had people take kimonos and just hang them outside and on hangers in trees to leave it out in the weather.

You just have to, it's like the great global uh, air out to get that smell out of stuff. That is awful. It's really bad. Yeah. Yeah. That's when I think of my grandma's upstairs, I think of the smell of moth balls. Yeah. 

She was very naughty to use those, but thank heavens. No, I've never gotten that in any of the fabrics that's been, that have been shipped to me. And I wouldn't know I was getting that. It would arrive and I would get it, but I haven't had that problem.  

Okay. So that brings one more question to mind. So do you only buy by the bolts or do you buy like actual kimonos and yukatas? I guess it'd be mostly yukatas. That's what she used the mothballs on was not fabric, it was then the drawers of a chest.

And for people who are listening, let's let them know that one of these bolts, bigger than a saran wrap roll, holds usually 11.6 meters, just over 12 yards. And in Japan, that's a kit. One bolt equals one kimono. And if we ask grandma, who might have some bolts in her sewing room, if we could have a couple of yards of that red one over there, she got very upset, because if she let us have any of that fabric, she couldn't make the kimono she was planning to make. So the fact that I get this fabric and cut it up could be deemed like a travesty. But the Japanese do not like vintage things. They don't even have a word for vintage, and they are discarding them almost.

No, it's not something of value to them, and I'm, I'm appreciating them. I'm bringing them forward, and we're giving them a new way to be and a new way to live, and I don't see it as doing the wrong thing, because, you could go to Japan and talk to anyone about Japanese fabric, and to tell you the truth, I mean, they don't have any thoughts about it. It's like, unless we find those textile people, it's, it's, uh, a brand new Coach purse is much more desirable than not an old bolt to fabric. I'm sorry to say. 

Yeah, no, and definitely having grown up there in the 90s. Yeah, it’s everything. Everything is new, right? It’s new, there's a lot of commercialism. The old things are, you know. Old, unless they're an antique. And then 100 years, they've got a special spirit. But on the way to 100 years, they're not valued at all. Yeah.

And people don't, they typically only wear kimono, yukata for festivals, for special occasions, for photographs, for certain, you know, milestones. Uh, it's not daily wear like it used to be. When my grandma was a young mom, she used to wear kimono to pick up her kids, drop them off at school. So I think those fabrics were, I don't want to say like they're not valued now, but they were, part of life. They were necessary. You know, some people still do, but they were part of what people needed and yes. 

Right. Yeah. Yep. They're, they are worn at Yukata are worn at the festivals, as you said, and in many homes, kind of like a housecoat. Because if they're going to, if they have a tatami room and they're going to sit low, wearing western clothes is not as comfortable as moving into your home kimono, so. 

But not that we, not that someone like me gets to be in very many people's homes, because we're going to meet with friends in Japan, we're going to, typically meet at a restaurant. I've been in a handful of homes, but that's very special.  

I love what you're doing. Uh, because I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Mingei, like folk, the folk art movement from like, oh gosh, like a hundred years ago. Yeah. Coming up a hundred years. Yeah. 

Yeah, and if they were so concerned about preserving these folk arts and these, you know, all of these practices that were fading with the, you know, industrial movement, just think about how much more is being lost today, right? So you're, you're finding a new way to use these fabrics, but you're still honoring them, in a way.

Yeah, I have talked with Japanese people about what I'm doing, and there's not a Japanese person who's concerned. Anyone who's in the textile world is very happy that Okan Arts exists because of the light that we're putting on traditional textiles in Japan, because it's us outsiders who are almost more passionate and interested than their neighbors. 

Yeah, absolutely. So that brings us to some of the tours you have coming up. I think it, what, is it just in a week or two that your first tour is starting? 

Well, we are running exactly right now. It's, there's a tour happening in, Kyoto based, that my daughter, Victoria, and then Sanae Naito, a Tokyo based textile designer.

They're co-leading a textile tour in Kyoto. And then I'm leaving in just over a week for, a different, obviously a different group in Kyoto for a textile tour. And that will get us into early spring. But then, we don't run tours late spring we bump into everything being booked and not affordable for cherry blossoms. And then golden week. 

And after golden week, we're too close to the summer, so we have our February and March tours and then we're back in October and November for another set of tours. So, we have fall 2024 and early spring 2025 tours now open for booking and places are selling kind of quickly.  

Yeah, so, so you do two tours in the spring and two in the fall then? Well this, 2024 we'll do three. But I'm not sure we'll do that in the future. I'm in Japan for over two months to do that. And I'm not sure I'll have the opportunity to be there that much in the future, but 2024 we're doing that and we have two flavors of tours right now. 

One is all textiles based out of Kyoto. It's got a lot of mini workshops and special trips, a few insider visits. And the other one is a quilting and textile tour where we start in Tokyo, go up to Mount Fuji, up to the Kubota museum and then slip back into Kyoto.

So we do half and half Tokyo, Kyoto, and we do a lot of insider visits in Tokyo to meet some, with some quilting greats and textile collectors, that, who are really quite lovely and interested in sharing their stories. So we're not, you know, Tokyo's big, it's not that crazy of a city, considering it's the most populated one in the world, but it changes everything when you can walk into someone's studio or home and spend time with them, and they share so many things with you.

Like Sheila Cliffe, the kimono celebrity on social media. She's a hoot. Well, we were the first tour that knocked on her door and asked if we could bring her people and boy was she prepared to tell us so much and show us so many great things. So, you know, opportunities like that, get exciting. 

I will say, even though I grew up in Kobe, I lived outside of Tokyo when I was really young. I, like many of the Japanese that you mentioned, did not previously have an appreciation for the textiles while I was living there. Right. As a child and as a teenager. So I would love to go back and, you know, go with different eyes and visit all of those places.

Like, in a different way, right? Like, I would. Oh yeah. Growing up there, you take it for, you take it for granted, you're not seeking out artisans, you know, I wasn't doing what I'm doing now while I live there, so I would even be excited to go on one of your tours, just to get inside a lot of these artisans workshops, and in their workspaces.

Well, that was me, and when I first went to Japan, my probably first three trips to Japan. I just was going to all the beautiful places. Michael and I love Kyoto. I didn't even want to go to Tokyo. Then we went to Tokyo, more things shifted. I'm very happy to go to Tokyo now. I have things I like to see and do there.

But, yeah, it's what it is to is as soon as you have something you're really interested in or focused on, you see the world differently. And you've walked past some, when you were younger, some places that today you'd think this is the greatest discovery ever. This antique kimono shop, this, vintage place, the flea markets, things that would really spark your passion today. And you'd be thinking about how you could cut it up and sew it together. 

Right? Right. Absolutely. So I have a couple more questions left. First I'm curious, and you have talked a little, touched a little bit on it, but I'm curious about your customer base. So obviously they're, predominantly English speaking. Where do you see most of your students from? 

Well, during the pandemic, this office I'm sitting in was a broadcast studio, and everyone around the world was impacted by COVID. So I'm pretty delighted to say that during the two and a half years where I was teaching a lot of curved workshops from here, I had a really favorite student from Kibbutz in Israel, someone from Mozambique, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, of course, and all across the United States.Oh, someone in Guatemala. 

So, Zoom enabled that to happen and that was great. And in my in person workshops, yes, I have had people travel halfway across the world to take a workshop with me and, good for them. Yeah. Australia, Scotland. But I think more, the people who were involved with are, people who are ready for something new. 

Going to a quilt shop and shopping the collections. Oh, here's the new collection of this and that is pretty exciting. And it's very well done these days. But when you get involved with this fabric, which has a very limited amount, it's lucious, it's hand dyed. You now have a, and maybe you take a class from me. I only teach people how to do their own thing, design their own quilts, not exactly follow me, but, they're just ready for it. So we're not Okan Arts and what I do is not really for the first time quilter because I don't think they're that ready for us. That said, I have taught people curved piecing when they've only made one quilt. Because curved, doing curved quilt work is just, you just have to learn the steps.

If you know how to sew, you have a pair of scissors, you can do it. But most people think it's hard and they wait a long time before they turn up at my doorstep. But, just people who are ready. Ready to be adventuresome. That's a great word you used earlier that, they're, going to, move forward in new ways. 

So in that sense, you do have a modern spirit because you, the students need to be able to take risk and be comfortable with that. Yeah, you’re right. I think traditional quilting is very predictable. 

I like to make things, maybe this is sort of selfish in my own way, but I like to make things I've never seen before and I never like to do the same thing twice, so I just have so much joy in just doing my own thing. But I am a good teacher and I like to share it, and my students often eclipse me. What I'm doing is interesting, but man what they take off and I'm not someone who's trying to get into all the shows or exhibit particularly, but some of my students are.

A quote comes to mind and I'm probably going to butcher it because it, I have not even read it in years, but it's, the gist of the quote is that, you know, the best teachers don't teach them what to see, they show them where to look, that's kind of the gist of it. Okay. That's essentially what you're doing. 

Well, I met a professor who led students in Masters of Fine Art programs. And he told me his best students were, are not the ones starting their two year program where they know exactly what they want to do. That's what they're going to do for the next two years.

It's the ones who are completely open and by taking that journey, then they find that focus. And I talk to my students about that. If they come into a workshop and they think they know exactly what they're going to make, I try to encourage them to crack past that and look more, discern more, experience the moment more than the preconceived idea. So that's something I like to inculcate in people who are around me.  

Yeah. No, fantastic. So there's two things left. One was I did notice your vintage kokeshi for sale on your website. Oh, yeah. So, I love kokeshi. And I told you I'm about to go to Japan. It's midwinter in northern Japan right now, but I'm going up to Naruko to meet with an artisan family that makes kokeshi, and I'm going to an onsen. So I'm going to have the whole experience, but I import those now and we sell them on our website. And I'm crazy about them. The Japanese dolls. 

So I have a small collection, but most of them are very tourist shop type grade. Well, I think they all are my dear. No, but I do have one that I inherited from my aunt that I just wanted to show you because it's just a little different than, just a little different than the tour shop ones, but it's also not quite the same as your vintage style.

So this is the one that I have back here. She's pretty big. Yes. Yes. And she's made out of a piece of birch and then the graphics on her. And so this is a very nice old one. But the one you have is called the Creative Kokeshi and it's a whole new movement. And I haven't offered those yet. I've been collecting them and sometime in the next six months we'll do a story about Creative Kokeshi and we will be offering more.

But can you show me yours one more time? I want to admire her. Yeah. So I don't know.  Yeah, she's adorable. Yeah, she's my favorite. Well, you're a modern quilter, and you have a modern kokeshi. So that goes with you.  

All right, well, the last thing we have to do, and I let you know about this ahead of time, is every episode we're going to have a learn Japanese element. So whether you speak Japanese or not, it's going to highlight either a definition of something, a phrase or a mentality that might fuel your creativity, or it could even be, you know, the definition of a certain craft. So let's learn some Japanese.

So I have two. One is konnichiwa, because I know it's so early in your podcast that I can have hello. But the other word is ikat, and I think that people come across that word, it's I K A T, and they want to call it EYE-kat or something. Ikat. And, it's this, weaving of fabric to make patterns where the yarn, I call it the thread, but it's called the yarns that are going to be woven are dyed. The yarn, like the little skinny yard bit by bit, indigo, yellow, red, indigo, yellow, red, blue, indigo.

Then it's woven to, and it's, that's how the pattern is made is this bundle dying, a lot of pre planning before it's woven. And I think that the ikat weaving is so phenomenal because they can get a little carried away and make it look like there's persimmons or swallows, way beyond plaid in the fabric.

When ikat is woven for cotton kimono with a cotton one, then you get the word kasuri. So there, I've given you two textile terms that are useful to know about Japanese textiles.  

All right, so kasuri is specific to the cotton then, not like the wool ikat? It's only specific to Japanese cotton. So, and it's also known as gasuri, and that, that's a little detail that's too refined. We'll just say kasuri. Yeah. 

Okay. Thank you so much. Well, as we wrap up, I will add these to the show notes, but can you let everyone know where they can find you online? OkanArts.com and @OkanArts on Instagram and OkanArts on Facebook.

Thank you. Wonderful. So, it was a pleasure to speak with you, to get to know about your business, to get to know more about Japanese textiles, and I look forward to seeing your upcoming blog posts about all your, all your tours this spring. 

I'll be writing about my Northern Japan, adventure soon. Yes, yes. Yeah, I'll write about that when I meet this father son set of makers of kokeshi. So you'll see all about it. I'm looking forward to that. Thank you. 

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